Peacock Blocked
Though my website fiasco has put me a week behind, you can rest assured that the Tonight Show debacle has me deeply depressed (as much as one can be for a television show). As you might expect, I came out strongly for Team Coco. As I wrote back in June, when O’Brien began what I expected to be a long career as the host of the flagship late-night talk show, I have been watching Conan since the mid-1990s, when he, Andy, and Max did the goofiest things on Late Night. I was sad when Andy left that show to try his hand at sitcom fame. I was sad again when one show after another was canceled after only a few months, leaving him off TV for years at a time, only to turn up in small roles on other soon-to-be-canceled shows, like Arrested Development. So, when it was clear that Andy would be rejoining Conan for the Tonight Show, it seemed that all was right in the television world. And, though the show got off to an awkward start, with Andy spending most of the time behind his podium off screen, by late autumn he was spending most of the show on the chair next to Conan, just like in the old days. When Conan announced that he wouldn’t be moving the program to 12:05, my first thought was, “Poor Andy, he can’t keep a job for more than six months”.
While my heart wishes that Conan would have just taken the later time slot, I cannot blame him for standing up for his convictions. The blame for all of this lies with the staggeringly incompetent NBC executives and Jay Leno. I remember the Leno/Letterman feud back in the early-1990s, and while I certainly preferred Letterman to Leno even then, I felt that Leno did have a valid claim to take over for Johnny Carson. And, while I recognize that Leno must have been bitter that NBC asked him to step aside in 2004, even as he was the top-rated late night show, that cannot excuse his conduct now. As David Letterman explained, when the network does you wrong, walk. If Jay resented losing the Tonight Show, he should have gone somewhere else. And, when their ten o’clock experiment failed and NBC told him he was canceled, he should have said, “Thanks, guys, but that’s enough. I’m out of here”. But no. He must really, really have been desperate to get back what he once had. Nothing else can explain why he would have been willing to either a) force all the other late night programs back a half hour, or b) put Conan in the untenable situation of having to decide to go along with it or leave.
Once it was clear that Conan’s days were numbered, the shows became more poignant and even more hilarious. The audiences were in a frenzy, and Conan was on fire. It made it that much more heart-breaking when, last Friday, they played a montage of clips from the run of the show, including the fantastic bit that opened his first episode as host, when he ran from New York City to Hollywood. It ended with the message “To Be Continued…”, but who knows what will happen. Neil Young playing “Long May You Run”, Tom Hanks, and “Freebird” with an all-star band, ended the show on an epic high.
My greatest hope is that Conan took the forty million dollars, handed it out to his staff including Andy and Max, and told everyone, “Take this money, have an eight month vacation, and meet me in September. We’re starting a new show”. But, even if he gets an offer from Fox, I don’t know if Andy and Max will join him. No matter the time slot, and no matter that Fox is the highest rated network, a new show will never be the Tonight Show. If he doesn’t get an offer from Fox he’s sunk. Cable would be an insult.
I was looking forward to spending the next decade watching The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. But last Friday, that dream died.
Filed under: Current Events, Television on January 28th, 2010
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